Competition Music!

Tuesday, October 13, 2009

All in the name of science...

Every two years, our department runs an undergraduate course on Reproductive Biology (coincidentally, the name of the course!). Students in general hate the course as the majority of it focuses on the reproduction of plants and fungi, but a small section of it relates to reproduction in animals. For this particular section, the amount of giggling and crude jokes that are made during the lectures of the students is, unsurprisingly, high.

For this section of the course, the practical that the students have to do is rather fun. No...it's not what you are thinking...but is instead an examination of the role of perfume in mate selection. It requires that the blindfolded students smell a selection of perfumes on male and female 'models' and state what they think of the perfumes. This year, Luke and Leia were the smell models.

For those that don't know me, I am closer to an ape than most people. In short, I have rather hairy forearms and this complicates matters when the students are not supposed to be able to distinguish the male and female models (shoving your nose into a hairy arm does kinda give away the sex of the model...). So, the solution?

SHAVING!!!

So, both Leia and I had to shave our arms for science! It was actually a fascinating experience! My arms are surprisingly smooth and I've discovered a whole bunch of scars that I had no idea I had, not to mention the shaving techniques that I learned which I can apply when and if I decide to do cycling competitively!

Here are the pics:

The shaving process at work: By shaving in one direction and then pushing the razor backward, it cleans the razor! Nifty hey?! :D

The process at work...Thank goodness we have sinks in the lab. The bathrooms would have been awkward to have to keep explaining to people what I was doing...

Before and After! Great insulation and comforting fluffiness converts to silky smooth and a map of past traumas!